This is an online event. If you're interested in joining this seminar, please contact netzero@kcl.ac.uk for the Teams meeting link.

Join us for the next in a series of seminars engaging with the concept of degrowth. Anitra Nelson and Vincent Liegey (2025) define degrowth as “an invitation to embrace emancipation, to creatively explore new ways of living based on social and ecological values, and to establish decommodified economic systems embedded and maintained within deliberative and direct democracies.”

These sessions are open to anyone curious about alternative futures.

This month we are joined by Dr Peter Sutoris from the University of Leeds. 

As humanity moves further along the path of environmental decay, we face an increasingly uncertain and unimaginable future. Yet our capacity to imagine alternatives is key to navigating the complexity of this moment. Technocratic frameworks — from the Sustainable Development Goals to net zero — can help stimulate our imagination, but they can also constrain it. Drawing on the recently published book Reimagining Development: Bold Directions Towards a Thriving World (Hurst/Oxford University Press), this talk asks how to unlock environmental imagination beyond technocratic limits, and how degrowth can open up spaces for more plural, just, and liveable futures.

This event is co-organised by the Net Zero Centre and the Engineering Seminar Series. 

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact the Net Zero Centre team at netzero@kcl.ac.uk.

Please note that the Q&A should be relevant to the presentation topic. If you'd like to ask questions about other topics, please email netzero@kcl.ac.uk.

Net Zero Interdisciplinary Seminar Series

The Net Zero Interdisciplinary Seminar Series is the flagship seminar series for King’s College London’s Net Zero Centre, providing a platform for cross-pollination between academia, industry and government to develop novel research projects to achieve Net Zero.

Every month, we host a speaker to discuss a new research idea and seek contributions from audience members on a proposed challenge. A half-hour talk is followed by a discussion, and we encourage speakers to engage with colleagues on research related to our four priority areas, decarbonisation, sustainable manufacturing, equitable resource allocation and resilient infrastructure.

About us

The Net Zero Centre at King's is dedicated to addressing the challenges of decarbonising our society and reducing the environmental impact of our manufacturing, infrastructure, and cities. It serves as hub for scientific, technological and engineering research geared towards this challenge.

Based in the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences (NMES), the Centre works across the boundaries of disciplines at King’s from geography and business to law and social science to deliver solutions for sustainable development. The Centre fosters the next generation of King’s change-makers by educating scientists and engineers on the holistic context of these challenges and developing technologically aware social scientists, lawyers, and policy makers.

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